Scientific Research Services Research Articles

The Preface of the Special Issue “RISTEX Service Science, Solutions and Foundation Integrated Research Program”

The Preface of the Special Issue “RISTEX Service Science, Solutions and Foundation Integrated Research Program”

A Theoretical Framework for Studying Service Design Practices: First Steps to a Mature Field

Drawing on literature from three main perspectives on service, design and innovation - Perspectives on Service Innovation (Service Innovation and New Service Development studies), Perspectives on Service (Service Science and Service Research frameworks on services), and Perspectives on Design (Design Anthropology) - this paper presents a theoretical framework, to systematically study, position and interpret Service Design practices and outcomes. The research is the first-phase of an on-going 6-months Art and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded scoping study into the contribution of Design for Service Innovation and Development. Proceedings from the The 19th Design Management Institute (DMI): Academic Design Management Conference, 2014

Developing and managing digital service ecosystems: a service science viewpoint

Purpose – The need for modern enterprises to seamlessly interoperate poses significant challenges on their capabilities for engaging in multiple business networks. This paper considers a particular type of business network, namely, “service ecosystems”, and proposes architecture for enabling business firms to: control dissemination and usage of the resources they contribute to the ecosystem; and develop corresponding service offerings. Design/methodology/approach – A literature review informed our research work and contextualized the development of relevant research questions. The research questions were based on unstructured, creative techniques (e.g. brainstorming), combined with rigorous requirements specification for software tools developed as part of this research. Overall development was based on service science and enterprise interoperability research, distilled in four principles that provided the context and direction for this work. Findings – Three key components of the proposed architecture were developed: service map, which identifies the building blocks needed to construct a service ecosystem; interoperability model, as a decision-making mechanism for dynamic (re-) arrangement of a service map’s building blocks; and shared service infrastructure for the provision of support services to all ecosystem participants. Originality/value – This research has advanced current thinking in developing and managing service ecosystems. By adopting a service science viewpoint (service value co-creation, value-in-use), a holistic approach for building collaboration capabilities is described: at the enterprise level, it pertains to decision-making mechanisms for service provision; at the ecosystem level, it pertains to a software platform for managing common collaboration tasks.

RISTEX:Service Science, Solutions and Foundation Integrated Research Program

RISTEX:Service Science, Solutions and Foundation Integrated Research Program

Systems Thinking for Service Delivery Design: A Real Time Mass Customisation Model

Recent attempts have been witnessed in service science research to extend principles from mass customisation into the design of service delivery systems. This paper investigates a new form of service operations design, known as systems thinking, by studying its impact on the capability of the service delivery system to provide mass customized services on a real-time basis. Four case studies were conducted in UK private sector service organizations using semi-structured interviews with service directors, team leaders, and operational employees. Data were also supplemented through the means of observations and documents collection. The results indicate that systems thinking approach is an enabler for the delivery of a real-time mass customized services. Seven different factors have been found to affect the real-time mass customization capability of the service system. The value of this paper is the identification of an innovative design for service delivery system that can help companies to provide realtime mass customized services.

Service Development Research for ICT Companies Based on Service Science Analysis

Service has emerged as the major element of the modern world’s economies, especially in the ICT industry. But the theory of service science is far behind the reality. Service science should provide theoretical basis and analysis framework for the service development. Through analyzing service science theory and current literatures, combining ICT companies’ real situation and development challenge, this paper offers several suggestions for service development, and builds the general service portfolio for ICT companies. On the other hand, this application in ICT companies will facilitate service science innovation, education, research application and development.

Service Development Research for ICT Companies Based on Service Science Analysis

Service has emerged as the major element of the modern world’s economies, especially in the ICT industry. But the theory of service science is far behind the reality. Service science should provide theoretical basis and analysis framework for the service development. Through analyzing service science theory and current literatures, combining ICT companies’ real situation and development challenge, this paper offers several suggestions for service development, and builds the general service portfolio for ICT companies. On the other hand, this application in ICT companies will facilitate service science innovation, education, research application and development.

A module-based service model for mass customization: service family design

Service science research seeks to improve the productivity and quality of service offerings by creating new innovations, facilitating business management, and applying practical applications. Recent trends seek to apply and extend principles from product family design and mass customization into new service development. Product family design is a cost-effective way to achieve mass customization by allowing highly differentiated products to be developed from a common platform while targeting individual products to distinct market segments. This article extends concepts from module-based product families to create a method for service design. The objective in this research is to develop a method for designing customized families of services using game theory to model situations involving dynamic market environments. A module-based service model is proposed to facilitate customized service design and represent the relationships between functions and processes in a service. A module selection problem for platform design is considered as a strategic module-sharing problem under a collaboration situation. A coalitional game is used to model potential module sharing and determine which modules used in the platform provide the most benefit. A case study involving a family of banking services is used to demonstrate implementation of the proposed method.

Service science for service innovation

Service Industry is the dominant sector of global economies. More efficient management and effective innovation of service industry may be a crucial competitiveness of a nation. Service science is an emerging discipline to combine engineering, computer science, and management. Service science means curricula, training, and research programs that are designed to teach individuals to apply scientific, engineering, and management disciplines that integrate elements of computer science, operations research, industrial engineering, business strategy, management sciences, and social and legal sciences. In this paper we will present an overview of service science for service innovation. First, service economy is explained in a comprehensive way from industry view to functional view. Advanced country’s policy on service innovation is introduced. And then the characteristics of service systems and service science are briefly analyzed. Some methods of service science for service innovation are to be introduced. And cases of service innovation will be presented.

A service accountability framework for QoS service management and engineering

Service science, management and engineering (SSME) research is to study the methodology and technology for service innovation, design, development and delivery. Since service industry is very quality-sensitive and trust-dependent, we propose a service accountability management framework to detect, diagnose, defuse and disclose the root cause for any problematic service process. The accountability support is important for SSME since service processes often rely on external service providers to deliver part of the service functionalities. A service system must have effective yet efficient mechanisms to ensure that every external service is delivering a consistent and acceptable level of performance to meet the end-to-end quality of service (QoS) of the whole service process. In this paper, we present the accountability framework, identify the components in an accountable service architecture, and design an accountability diagnosis methodology. We also briefly present the inteLLigent Accountability Management Architecture (LLAMA) project which implements the accountability service bus (ASB), an agent-based middleware to support the monitoring, diagnosis, and reconfiguration of e-services. LLAMA ASB interacts with accountability agents to monitor services and the Accountability Authority to automatically diagnose faulty situations. The LLAMA technology is useful to ensure the QoS in SSME-based systems.

Re-Appropriating Social Dilemmas Research to Inform Service Science

This theoretical paper discusses re-appropriating social dilemmas research to inform service science research. Service science researchers wishing to encourage collaborative, inter-individual exchanges may want individuals to behave such that individuals are not motivated solely by their own economic self-interests, but ultimately pursue actions that benefit the overarching good of multiple groups.

Approaches to marketing scientific research services

SummaryMarketing scientific research and related technical services to industry is of increasing importance to research laboratories facing declining government funding. At the same time, many firms see such organizations as attractive potential resources, including previously inaccessible large-scale research expertise and infrastructure. However, experience of both private firms and government labs in working together is relatively limited. Concepts from services marketing, with its strong focus on customer needs, can help facilitate the linkages. This article shows that these concepts should be applied to marketing short-term R&D and technical services. When marketing longer term research, however, insights into customer needs will be of little help in facilitating alliances to commercialize technologies for which no known market exists. What does the market tell us that is important in finding potential allies? Venture capitalists and other investors considering longer term research as an investment possibility look for a track record, platform technologies, commercially aware researchers, and how convincingly and creatively the research provider helps the investor manage risk.

Teacher Decision-Making in the Classroom

After the idealist 1960s and early 1970s we are lurching into the more materialistic mid and late 1970s; and schools and teachers are experiencing this shift at structural, organisational and individual levels (Hunter). This quotation appears in one paper in a collection concerning teacher decisionmaking in the classroom. The papers are revisions of those presented to a working group funded by the British Social Service Science Research Council. In his editorial introduction to the papers, Professor Eggleston characterises the work of the group as . . preliminary explorations of initiatives that can illuminate the continuous but often latent processes of decision-making in the classroom-processes that have consequences for all participants. Summarising previous research on teacher behaviour in the classroom, Eggleston points out that this decade's research has followed two broad courses; on one hand the descriptive/interpretative analysing teacher's activity; on the other, curriculum development/evaluation, concerned with behavioural consequences for children. The area between, the decision making process itself, has not however been the object of much examination. The papers in the volume attempt to fill in this gap by raising such questions as: How and why do teachers make decisions in the classroom for instance about the use of new and existing curricula, about progress, resource usage, selection of information? Teacher decisions are analysed from psychological, economic and sociological perspectives. The papers range widely in coverage, methodology and theory. A psychologist's view is presented by Mervin Taylor. He looks at the teachers' implicit personality systems by using a 'repertory grid technique', and finds they have more articulated 'probability systems' than previous research has indicated. The ideology of the teacher and its consequences for the teacher's decision-making is the object of Finlayson and Quirk's paper. They stress the justificatory role that ideological formulations plays in interactions between teachers and individuals and members of groups whom they regard as threatening. The authors question whether the raising level of awareness (negative as well as positive) of ideology among administrators and teachers not bridge the gulf between normative assumptions made about schools in the ideologies and the realities of the classrooms. A phenomenological approach is presented by David Hargreaves, who believes that explication of the interrelationship between teachers' values and professional skills, revealed in decision-making, could provide the experienced teacher with the tools to uncover and reconstruct his own common sense knowledge, skills and values and thus to change more thoroughly and with self-awareness.

Practical Organizational Plans for a Complete University Computing Service

It is intended in this paper to discuss only the organizational aspects of university computing programs from an administrative viewpoint. No attempt will be made to discuss the relative merits of various electronic computing facilities or their ancillary equipment (rented, bought or constructed), or the technical problems relating to computer-oriented numerical analysis and programming. It seems obvious that considerations of alternative organizational plans for a university computing program should be guided by a clear understanding that universities will differ markedly in their present and future requirements in the computing sector. Large universities may have quite different requirements than medium-sized or smaller universities or colleges. Again, universities which are heavily oriented in their research programs towards the physical sciences and engineering may have different requirements than those whose major research programs are in the biological sciences, agriculture, the social sciences and the humanities. Large universities, of course, may have computing requirements in all these fields. Universities may differ as regards interests and availability of staff in mathematics, statistics and computing who are qualified to work in computer-oriented numerical analysis, programming and machine language. Similarly, universities may differ as regards interest and availability of staff in physics and/or electrical engineering who are qualified to work in computer electronics involving logical design, switching theory, computer construction, research on component parts, maintenance, etc. Other things being equal, universities may still differ in their abilities to provide financial resources for the necessary space, facilities and staff for a computer program to meet user requirements. Finally, universities may differ with regard to the existing computing organizational structure (if any) and the status of knowledge about and extent of experience in administering the existing computing program (if any). The recent phenomenal development and improvement of electronic computers and programming procedures, and the realization of their importance in scientific research, education, automation, and in the processing of university records, have properly resulted in universities acquiring computer facilities and establishing computing programs. In many cases, however, due primarily to the rapidity of the growth and change, still underway, many universities have been able to make only ad hoc and tentative organizational plans. In many such cases the responsibility for the university computing program has been assigned to some university department or agency which assumed the initiative in promoting the program and/or was able to provide needed computing service staff and in many cases even provide a large share of the financial support, usually from an off-campus source. In other cases computers, acquired primarily for Business Office and Registrar Office work, have been made available for scientific research service computations on a part-time basis, which may have meant going to a second and even third shift.